1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to devices which handle machine readable tape wound on a spool or reel, and particularly to a tape reel flange that has an effective zero taper.
2. Background of the Invention:
Magnetic tapes, including reel and cassette-style cartridges and other devices that use magnetic media, are used in many industries to store data, programs, and other information. Magnetic tapes are typically stored on reels or spools, which are cylinders about which the tape is wound, typically having flanges to guide the tape onto the cylinder. Accessing information from a reel or spool of tape typically requires that the spool be inserted into a reading machine, which unwinds the tape from the file spool and winds it onto a temporary storage spool (also referred to as a machine reel or machine spool) until the portion of the tape with the desired information is reached. A magnetic read element reads the information, and the tape is rewound back onto the original file spool and removed from the reader.
A primary objective of tape drive tape path design is to limit the lateral and angular, or skew, motion of the tape as it passes across the read/write head(s). Most of the misalignment and dynamic motions result from vertical motions of the tape at the supply and take-up reels. In particular, the spacing between the flanges on the reels is substantially wider than the tape, especially at the reel outer diameter (OD), which allows the tape to move vertically as it comes on and off the reel. These misalignments must be controlled by tape edge guides, which can result in unacceptable wear on the tape edges.
One approach to correcting this problem has been to pack each wrap of tape to a single fixed flange on each reel. This reel, however, still includes a flange having an industry standard taper which allows for vertical tolerances, tip/tilt tolerance, and runout in the reel. The taper is required in order to avoid ticking or dragging a tape edge on the OD of the reel flange. As the reels fill and empty, the tape pack follows the flange taper and thus is misaligned vertically as a function of pack radius.
Therefore, the current technology would be improved by a tape reel flange that provides an effectively zero taper.